


Bid Farewell

by LadyRoxie



Category: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries
Genre: F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Slightly broken Jack, Tea and Sympathy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-02
Updated: 2017-06-02
Packaged: 2018-11-07 23:18:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11069136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyRoxie/pseuds/LadyRoxie
Summary: Jack gets some bad news, and Phryne doesn't stay away.





	Bid Farewell

**Author's Note:**

> What a mad month this has been... Thank you thank you Fire_Sign for letting me slip this in just over the wire for May... (RL has kept me from reading & commenting on all the glorious new fics, but I can't wait to.) Voila a little achy breaky.... All kinds of apologies if it's mostly a great mess. Eeep. :/
> 
> NB. The Shakespearean references in this piece - including the title - are all from _As You Like It_ , and are all drawn from Rosalind's beautiful epilogue. For those who know the play, the clever and noble Rosalind bears more than a passing resemblance to Phryne. ;)

Jack Robinson did not as a rule take the hand of the woman he loved. She so rarely required it, and to do so would have revealed (perhaps to her; certainly to himself) far too much about the truth behind a somewhat practiced facade. The few times it had happened, (deliberately innocuous moments like disembarking a car, or boarding a yacht) it had threatened the delicate balance of distance and proximity, of intimacy and isolation that he spent an increasing degree of energy tending.

It was a small thing, far smaller in reality than it seemed to him, he knew. Yet somehow he could not school his careful mind away from the cataloguing of each time she had ever reached for him, and feeling all over again the fragile joy that had come with them.

Unlike his own deliberately abstract gestures (offers of gentlemanly assistance, each), hers were always, always the opposite: a long grasp of fingers across a scrubbed table on Midsummer's Eve; a hand extended blindly behind her at a graveside. She reached for him when her heart urged it, not propriety, and it felt beautiful and dangerous every time. 

He hated a little that he recalled each time, though only to himself; he was far from a schoolboy. She was not selfish, not careful, and not studied, and he knew each clasp of her hand, like each smile and crinkle of her eyes, was as spontaneous and candid as her laugh. 

And if he dreamed of it happening out of love, or desire, well... he had kept secrets before. 

When it did happen again, it was on a gloriously sunny March day, when the early autumn breeze brought a barely cool breath to the skin, and the air was fragrant with the perfume of late-season roses and gardenia. Jack had spent the early hours of the day working in his garden, and had stepped inside the sudden darkness of the kitchen to freshen the tea that was now stone cold, and maybe make a sandwich. 

Later, he wouldn't remember the sun, or the scent of the flowers, or the face of the boy who had delivered the news. But he would remember her hand.

The telegram was brief, and Jack absurdly wondered what would have happened had he not answered the door, not chosen that moment to reenter his little house and instead had stayed ignorant and happy amongst his flowers. He and Miss Fisher had an engagement later that afternoon to investigate a tea room not far from his own house where there had been sightings of a man suspected of money laundering – apparently his mother owned the shop, and he took his lunch there nearly every Saturday. Jack found he was looking forward to it; he found he usually did, when she was involved. 

But he did answer, and as always happens with the news of the end of a life lived close to one's own, Jack's world tilted forever to one side, his memories and the baggage of a lifetime sent tumbling over each other out of dusty corners.

JACK. TEDDY PASSED. SUCCUMBED TO CONDITION MARCH 5 SYDNEY. BURIED MCCANN CEM NSW. MUM SENDS LOVE. GAFF.

The words swam into a meaningless pool on the yellow paper. Jack brushed off his hands on his grubby trousers before rummaging blindly in his pocket for a tip. The young lad before him couldn't be more than 13 – only a few years older than Jack had been when he had met Teddy and Ellis Gaffney. 

He fumbled the coins into the boy's hand without meeting his eyes and shut the door, suddenly needing to lean against it. 

_Succumbed to condition._ What a hell of a thing. For a fierce, angry moment, Jack wondered what the doctors at the veteran's hospital – the place that had been his friend's home for the last twelve years – would say had been Teddy's condition, exactly – “war-related trauma? Shell-shock so profound it left him unable to speak? A body broken by mortar shelling and gutted by four years in a demon's hell?” _His condition_. As if it were something Teddy incurred, contracted, brought on himself.

Jack realized he was slumped against his front door, the telegram clenched in dirty fingers, his jaw locked. He closed his eyes, regretting the choice immediately when out of nowhere a hot flood of tears spilled down his cheeks. 

He sank to the floor, his head coming to hang between his bent knees, the wood at his back the only thing keeping him connected to the world. He wept, and was grateful he lived alone. 

When his breathing finally softened, his eyes felt thick and swollen and there was a tightness in his throat he couldn't loosen. He swiped the folds of his turned up sleeve roughly over his face before remembering he was filthy. 

He rose, his body feeling as ancient and heavy as stone. A wave of shame washed over him. He had been ignorant, unthinking, puttering like a docent amongst his bloody flowers. And Teddy had been gone the whole time.

His throat screamed for tea, but he turned just shy of the kitchen and headed for the bathroom. He tossed the crumpled telegram onto the bed as he passed it, stripping off his things and letting them fall to the floor. 

Under scalding water, he scrubbed the last of the garden from under his nails, from his arms, from his face. He was surrounded by the pretty yellow tile of his shower, but saw only the raw, wide-set boards of the latrines in France. The mild vetiver soap dragging the dirt from his body smelled to him like the rough carbolic bars he'd used then, the coal tar eventually turning his skin red with irritation. 

If Jack had been a younger man, he might have thought he was losing his mind. But he'd lived long enough to know this was not insanity. It was life.

The water turned first tepid and then ice cold, and Jack gritted his teeth as he stood, one arm braced against the shower wall. When a shiver nearly caused him to slip, he reached forward and turned the taps.

Once dry, he bundled his gardening clothes in a pile and shoved them into the bottom of the wicker hamper in his small bedroom before pulling on a clean shirt and trousers. Pausing, he reached for the bit of yellow paper on his bedspread, forgetting about socks, cufflinks, even a vest.

He and the Gaffney brothers had been a crew for almost as long as he could remember. The Three Musketeers, whether they were on the footie pitch or biking the wooded paths at the edge of their neighbourhood. Jack, who had never been one for a big gang of friends, had liked both of them immediately. They'd met on their bicycles – Ellis and Jack had laughed at Teddy's pratfalls and goofy tricks – and become fast friends. Looking back, Jack thought they'd always been a good match: Ellis' kind intelligence and Teddy's affable innocence matching well with his own preference for contemplation, and being on the edges of things. Ellis and Teddy were not quite one year apart – “ _real Irish twins_ ”, Ellis would say with a wink – and Jack's own birthday was smack in the middle. Teddy used to call him their “third twin”, and he and Jack would giggle as Ellis corrected him for the thousandth time. 

They'd been fixtures at each others' homes, Mrs. Gaffney never minding the thoughtful, quick-to-smile Robinson boy as one more at her already groaning table, and Jack's mother taking an instant shine to the charming Gaffney boys.

Over time, bikes and Buffalo Bill gave way to books and pretty girls. Ellis and Teddy had stood up with Jack when he married Rosie, and Jack had done the same for Ellis when he married his Leah. 

When the boys' father George had passed, a couple of years after they were all out of school, Mrs. Gaffney had moved to Sydney, to be closer to her own mother and sisters. Jack had been deeply grateful when Ellis and Teddy had stayed in Melbourne, and the three had continued to be a part of each other's lives. 

When the war had come, they had enlisted together.

At first, it was an adventure, and then it was a job, and then it was hell. They had been able to stay together for much longer than some, and when Jack was transferred, away from his division and into a section no one would say much about, they'd swapped the copper badges they wore on their collars: Teddy took his brother's, Ellis took Jack's, and Jack took Teddy's. He'd touched it every morning when he woke, and every night. 

They'd all made it home. But none of them was the young man he'd been as they'd stood together at the rail of the ship, watching Australia get thinner and thinner on the horizon until she was only a memory. 

Jack looked down at the crumpled paper in his hands and tried to smooth it out as he padded on bare feet to the kitchen.

The telephone startled him as he was filling the kettle, and his first thought was to ignore it. But he was on call today, and at the last minute he sat the kettle on the hob and went to the phone table in his narrow hallway.

“Robinson.” His voice sounded like someone else's.

“Jack?”

It took him a moment; the juxtaposition of the world-between-veils he'd been in since the telegram, and the almost impossible clarity of her voice didn't make sense. 

“Miss Fisher.” He had to clear his throat. 

“Inspector, have you stood me up? Because while it is not unheard of, I like to keep those instances very few and far between.”

“Stood -” Their plans came back to him in a rush, and he realized he had no idea what time it was.

“Christ,” he said under his breath. (If she was surprised, she said nothing.) “I'm sorry, Miss Fisher. I...”

“Jack, what's wrong?”

Jack pressed his lips together.

“Nothing. I... ah, I'm not well. Nothing serious. We'll reschedule for next week. I... I apologize, Miss Fisher.”

There was a suspended silence on the other end of the line, and Jack covered his eyes with his palm, praying she believed him.

When she spoke, her voice seemed to reach through the telephone and stroke his cheek. He bit the inside of it, hard.

“Do you need anything, Jack?” 

He willed himself to picture soup and headache powder though her voice suggested other things.

“No.” He swallowed. “Thank you. Goodbye Miss Fisher.”

He rang off, setting the handset heavily in its cradle.

He did make tea, leaving it too long in the pot, and drinking it anyway. He couldn't say how long he sat, emptying the pot, and moving eventually to whiskey. After two very generous glasses, he decided the whiskey worked better.

Teddy had been wounded. It hadn't been serious, Ellis had been told at the time, in a letter from the field hospital; _not life-threatening_. He told Jack once, years later, he didn't feel as much guilt over anything else as he did over his relief in that moment. While Teddy's shrapnel wounds healed, and his useless left arm atrophied and learned to be bound to his chest, the eager brightness that had lived in Teddy's sweet brown eyes never returned, and they became ever wilder. 

Ellis was shipped home six weeks after the war ended, more or less in one piece, much like Jack. He hadn't seen his brother in 22 months, but when he stepped off the train in Sydney, the look on his mother's face told him everything. Teddy never again left the hospital, and Ellis forgot what his laugh sounded like. 

Jack had kept in touch with Ellis, after they'd returned. Not as often as he meant to, and not as well. When things started to go so wrong with Rosie, Jack had pulled away from everyone. Christmas cards and the odd stilted visit when Ellis was in Melbourne, which was rarely, were all they'd had in years. Jack had always meant to get to Sydney to see Teddy, to give their mum a hug. But somehow his own shackles had held him fast.

Shadows tracked across the kitchen. As the sun began to set, Jack moved to the sink, looking out over the checked curtains to the garden where his tools still lay scattered. He ought to go retrieve them, wipe them down carefully, and stow them in his tiny shed, the blades plunged into a bucket of sand and motor oil to keep them clean and sharp. He couldn't find the energy to care.

He rinsed his teacup and was about to pour another whiskey when there was a knock at the door. He stared in the direction of his foyer, his heart pounding in his ears. _But, no – it had already happened; this couldn't be more bad news_. He scrubbed a hand over the back of his neck and nodded slightly to steady himself. He'd ignore it... see if they went away.

The knock sounded again: three quick raps, not overly forceful but not shy. Jack ran a hand through his hair and realized he'd forgotten his pomade; the waves stuck out in all directions against his fingers. He sighed. 

There was no window in his front door, so when he opened it a crack and it was not his paperboy or his elderly neighbour but Phryne Fisher standing before him, it was a moment before he could respond. 

“Hello, Inspector.” The scent of her perfume anchored her in front of him, convincing him she was real. She'd never been to his home, though he'd later shake his head that he was in any way surprised she knew where he lived. She seemed too lovely to be on his porch.

“Miss... Miss Fisher.” Jack blinked, the brightness and the whiskey making it hard to focus. He glanced behind her, wondering fleetingly if Constable Collins was with her, if this was police related. But all he could see at her back were the long, thin shadows cast by the row of cypress trees on the far side of his neighbour's property, falling across the roses along his path.

“What...” Jack's brow furrowed as he met her eyes, and he swallowed, realizing his state of semi-undress. He angled his body self-consciously behind the door. 

Phryne dipped her head to catch his eye, and smiled gently. “May I come in, Inspector? I don't mind the verandah, and I'm sure the old dear across the way would be grateful for fodder for the local gossip mill, but I'd just as soon spare your reputation.”

Jack's eyes flickered to Mrs. Sewell's window, where a tell-tale flick of the curtains confirmed Miss Fisher's suspicions. He widened the door, shuffling back on his bare feet and staring at the floor.

Phryne swept in, unpinning her hat and doffing it in one fluid motion before turning to face him, eyebrows raised. It took Jack a moment.

“Oh. Ah, just there,” he said, gesturing to a spindle table beneath a row of coat hooks. Phryne deposited her hat and gloves, and shrugged off her fur-trimmed stole. Jack's frown remained as he took it from her and hung it on the wall. 

“I've never been here, Jack,” Phryne said with what sounded to both of them like false brightness.

Jack found he couldn't tow the line. His voice was gruff and low when he spoke. 

“Why are you here, Miss Fisher. I told you, I'm -”

“I know what you told me, Jack. You're a terrible liar.”

Jack met her gaze. His pulse started to race and he suddenly felt the force of the whiskey he'd drunk in what had likely been a very short time, not to mention on an empty stomach. 

“What's happened? Please, will you talk to me?” Phryne's arms were at her side and it occurred to him that she seemed stiller than usual; there was almost no movement from her pleated white skirt, nor the dotted silk blouse she wore over it.

Jack's hand came up to straighten a tie he wasn't wearing, then moved to run again through his unruly curls.

“I like it.”

“Beg your pardon?” _Was that really his voice?_

“Your hair, Jack. I like it. It may be a little radical for the Victorian Constabulary, but definitely has its charm.”

Jack's smirk was the first sign of himself she'd seen, and it broke the length of taut rope between them.

“Jack, you are not alright, and you aren't ill.”

How long they stood like that, the only sound his slightly laboured breathing, he didn't know. He couldn't explain how his heart had both sped up and slowed down upon seeing her at his door. But he found that as much as he felt like crawling into bed and never leaving, he also didn't want her to go. 

Finally, he gave a small nod.

“Come on.”

She followed him down the short corridor to the kitchen, and didn't raise an eyebrow when she saw the single tumbler and half-empty bottle on the table, its wax cap discarded beside the glass. Without a word, Jack pulled out a chair for her, then crossed to the cupboards to retrieve a second glass. He poured them each a drink then sat heavily, turning the cork over and over in his large hands.

The yellow telegram lay in the middle of the table, and he knew Phryne's eyes would have been drawn to it from the moment she entered the room. Still, she said nothing, only sipping her not-very-good whiskey.

“It's terrible, I'm sorry,” said Jack, raising his own glass a little without looking at her.

“I've enjoyed worse.”

The corner of his mouth turned up, though the smile nowhere near reached his eyes.

“So.” Phryne leaned forward over the table, wrapping her slim fingers around the glass. “Are you going to talk to me, or am I just going to start guessing?”

Jack drew deeply from the glass. Every time she spoke, something in him jumped, as if she was the path to both the thing he most needed, and was most afraid of. He felt his heart beat bang at his chest, and the heat of the whiskey seem to coat the hammer and drum.

“I had a friend. Two. We grew up, we went to war, we came home. And one of them...” Jack's voice cracked on the last word, and he suddenly cleared his throat aggressively, his face darkening and the hand not holding his drink balling into a fist. 

“Yesterday one of them died. That's it.” He knocked back the rest of his drink, slamming the glass on the table harder than he meant to. His eyes flickered inadvertently to the telegram.

“May I read it, Jack?” Phryne's hand reached out towards it, but he knew she'd pull back if he asked. He nodded mutely.

He watched her face as she read the words on the wrinkled page, grateful when her face showed neither pity or sorrow.

Phryne lay the paper on the table, and smoothed it out with one elegant hand.

“His “ _condition_ ”...”

Jack grimaced and went to take another drink before realizing his glass was empty.

“ _Too long spent in hell_ , I believe is the medical term.”

Phryne nodded.

They sat in silence, the kitchen getting gradually darker. Finally, Phryne looked up.

“I'd love some tea. May I make some?”

Jack looked up slightly bleary-eyed. “I... erm, I can...”

She reached out a hand and laid it on his bare forearm. “Let me? Just tell me where you keep the tin.”

Jack slumped back into his chair and for the next few minutes, the familiar knocks and whistles of making a pot of tea filled room.

When it was ready, Phryne filled two mugs, and set them and a tin of biscuits on a small flowered tray she'd found propped against the back-splash. She carried everything to the doorway to the parlour. 

“Can we shift in here? It looks like such a lovely room and perhaps a fire would be nice.”

Jack cleared his throat. “Of course. I'll just....”

“You don't need to do anything, Jack. Just come and sit.” 

A slight murmur of panic fluttered over him, as if following her now was dangerous. But he was too tired to resist, and he found that somehow, following her was what he wanted. He managed to stand, smoothing the arms of his uncuffed shirt down self consciously. 

“God, I must look a mess.” 

“I'm not complaining,” she said, her familiar curled grin softer than usual but still playful. He rolled his eyes and lead her into his sitting room. 

Phryne set the tea tray down on a low table in front of the lounge, then sat and looked around, her face bright and curious.

“Oh Jack, it's just perfect. And so many books! Though I'm hardly surprised...” She grinned.

Her gaze swept over the long wall of bookshelves, then over the squashy leather armchair and the few photos and ornaments on the mantel. Finally it came to rest on Jack, currently bent over the fireplace, blowing gently to start the flame.

“Tell me about him?”

Jack stilled.

“If you want, that is.”

He looked down at the snuffed match in his fingers, then at the quickly growing fire. The smell of sulphur and woodsmoke called up a thousand memories, and as though his mind was obeying her without his consent, images of times with Teddy and Ellis were shuffled to the front, hovering and insistent. He tossed the match into the flames, then stood.

“We found a dog once,” he began, settling next to her on the small couch, and accepting the steaming mug she held out. “She wasn't well, and we knew neither of our mums would let us keep her if she weren't, so we hid her for weeks and set about nursing her round the clock...”

They talked into the night, Jack recounting the adventures of three boys on bicycles, Phryne laughing, and scolding, and occasionally adding an adventure of her own. They drank more tea, more whiskey, and Jack found some bread, cheese, and a bar of chocolate and they made a picnic of it without thinking, propped up by pillows on the narrow lounge. Phryne slipped off her shoes and curled onto the couch, her knees bent close towards him.

Without meaning to, Jack entered the stories of their early days overseas, of their secrets, and their growing fears. They were things he hadn't spoken of since they'd happened: not with Ellis, or Teddy, or even his wife, and it was as if he was painting a glorious picture of three lives in all colours and all dimensions. She was the canvas.

When he reached the day of his transfer, the day he last saw Teddy, he grew quiet. Phryne stilled her hands on the glass in her lap and stared at the embers in the grate. Suddenly, Jack rose and disappeared down the hall, and she wondered if he'd reached the end of his candour.

She had replaced her glass on the tray and was about to collect her things when the floor in the corridor creaked again under Jack's feet. He appeared in the doorway, something small cradled in his hands. 

He stared at it as he came back to sit beside her, then held it out to her. The copper badge glinted in her hand, the metal catching the last of the crimson glow of the fire. 

“It's Teddy's; Ellis has mine. We traded that day...” Jack's voice failed.

“....so someone would always have your back,” Phryne finished. 

Jack nodded, staring at his hands.

“I didn't though, did I. I didn't have his back.” She turned to look at him, and saw his eyes red and full of tears.

“Jack, none of us...”

He silenced her with an angry shake of his head. “I should have _done something_. I should have never let him join up! I should have helped when he was...”

“ _Jack Robinson_ ,” she said, her voice ringing clear and sharp in the dim room. “This was not your fault.”

Her words struck him like a palm to his cheek. He froze, mouth still open, and stared at her, his frantic eyes seeing a serenity in hers he had never seen there before.

“This was your nightmare too, Jack. And it was Teddy's, and his brother's, even mine. You loved him, and he knew. He knew.”

Without breaking his gaze, she lay the pin on the table, and took his hand in hers. Her hand was firm and soft, and he felt her strength through it. It felt like the deepest embrace, a crush of warmth and tenderness the likes of which it had been years since he had felt. It felt safe.

Tears came then, so hard and fast Jack felt like he was being swept over a precipice into a free-fall. His breath left him choking, and his body spasmed and shook. He clung to her hand, and when that felt like the only lifeline he had, he fell forward, gripping her waist and burying his head in her lap. Over and over, she stroked his head, one hand still holding firm to his, and murmured kindnesses he didn't deserve into his wild hair.

*** 

Dawn broke peach and grey through the voile curtains. Jack blinked slowly and went to rub his eyes, realizing as he did he was still on the lounge in his parlour. He was on his side, curled away from the back of the couch. The fire had long since burned down, and he was covered with the soft wool throw he kept on the arm of the couch. He wiggled his bare toes, and realizing they were warm in spite of the chill in the room.

When he went to roll onto his back, he stopped, consciousness pricking him instantly. 

Phryne Fisher dozed beside him, her black bob spread in a fan on the back of the sofa, one pale arm draped over him. Her head was tilted down, her long eyelashes resting on her cheeks, her pink lips slightly parted.

Her other hand was still entwined with his, and his head was pillowed on her lap.

Jack shifted slightly, wincing at the flash of pins and needles that shot through one arm. When he looked back up, blue eyes blinked back.

Neither spoke. Phryne raised one hand to stifle a yawn, and stretched a little. When Jack made to sit up, fearing he was crushing her, she stopped him with a hand on his chest, and shook her head.

Holding her gaze, he settled back, bending his knees up and resting his head back on her lap. She reached out, winding one thick curl around her fingers before letting it go, a smile softening the corners of her mouth.

Later, Jack would wonder why he hadn't been embarrassed - mortified even - at waking up nearly in her arms, after breaking down more completely than he ever remembered doing. But nothing in him protested. Not the hour, not their posture, not the fact that he was only wearing half of his normal complement of clothing, not even the lack of having cleaned his teeth the night before. None of it mattered, because none of it occurred to him.

He closed his eyes as her hand swept over his forehead again, and he breathed deeply. 

“Thank you,” she said. Her voice was honeyed and textured with sleep, and he loved it.

He huffed a gentle laugh and looked up into her face.

“I think that's my line.” His own voice was a rumble.

Her smile was bare and sweet. “Together, then.”

Jack cast his eyes down to where their hands lay entwined on his chest. “I don't know what to say.”

“I believe someone once said, “ _a good play needs no epilogue_.”” Her thumb stroked the back of his knuckles, and all the parts of him seemed to narrow in to a small, fine point, reflected in her eyes.

“Sounds like a wise man.”

“Woman, actually,” she grinned.

“Really.”

“Mmm.”

“Hm. I do believe you're right. Fierce, brave, kind, loyal and uncommonly beautiful, if memory serves...” Jack's other hand came to cover Phryne's and he traced her fingers with his own. “And a woman of profound integrity.”

“I like her already,” said Phryne, her eyes twinkling.

“As do I,” said Jack. “I always have.”

They eventually rose from the lounge, rumpled and stiff, and Jack gallantly allowed Phryne into his small lavatory to freshen up while he rummaged in the ice box for the makings of breakfast. When they were both fed and properly dressed, Phryne gathered her hat and stole, and Jack walked her to her car.

The gutting sorrow from the night before had eased, replaced with a benign sadness, which he was used to, and a budding hope, which he was not. Phryne's fingers found his bicep as passed the dew-sprinkled roses on his path, and in spite of the flutter of curtains across the road, Jack found he didn't want to say goodbye. 

They stopped at the long, low automobile, and before she got in, Jack reached for her hand and pulled her towards him. 

“Come back.”

Her head tilted, but her eyes were bright.

“Come back, tonight. Have dinner. Here, I mean. Have dinner with me.”

He searched her face for a hint of discomfiture or reproach, but found none. Instead, her red lips spread into a radiant smile. 

“Will you be in shirtsleeves and braces?” she said, one slim finger tracing the line of his lapel. 

Jack's mouth twisted in familiar censure. “No, Miss Fisher, I shall be properly attired.”

“Oh well then...” she shrugged lightly before letting a giggle escape her lips. “I'd be honoured, Inspector. Perhaps I'll bring some whiskey.” 

Her eyes twinkled, and Jack held her gaze a moment before looking down at his hands. 

“It meant the world, Phryne. That you came.” He watched her hand reach over and cover his, then felt her lean in, the feather in her cream cloche just brushing his ear. Her lips lingered on his cheek, and for a dark, sparkling instant, he wanted to weep that Teddy Gaffney never got to feel this. But then her fingers squeezed his, and she pulled back enough for him to see the flecks of green and gold in her eyes, and he lay Teddy gently to the side, to be visited soon and often. 

“Until tonight, then,” said Jack, standing at his full height, a smile playing behind his lips. 

“As you like, Inspector.” Phryne's smile was wide, and as he watched her tear away from the curb, one hand on her hat, he was fairly sure his own grin was just as broad. And strangely, not even Mrs. Sewell's trembling curtains could make him regret it.


End file.
